Month: October 2009

I just got a call from Scott Thoreson, YISD Fine Arts Director, who informed me that Del Valle's appeal had be upheld and the band will advance! They drew the number 11 spot in preliminaries for November 3! Great Job representing the kids, Scott, and CONGRATULATIONS to the Del Valle Band!

If you've been keeping up, you'll know we had another surprise filled contest on Saturday! Our three bands actually did great against a tough field in Odessa, with Del Valle coming in 4th, Mountain View 9th, and Riverside 13th in the preliminary round. Del Valle and Mountain View both advanced to Finals, where Del Valle finished 5th and Mountain View moved up a spot to 8th.

So despite the controversy surrounding the Del Valle Band's announced advancement/ unadvancement to the SMBC, I feel good about our region. I can assure everyone that the YISD Fine Arts Staff is on top of the Del Valle situation. There IS an appeals process, they ARE following it, and I for one feel very hopeful that things will go our way. We should hear of a decision by sometime on Tuesday, and I will certainly send out word as soon as I get the OK to do so from The Ysleta Staff. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed!

In a late breaking development, Del Valle's advancement to state has been, at least temporarily, rescinded! The issue came down to a misinterpretation of the UIL rules regarding judges' preference. The rules state

"In addition, in all area contests any band that receives a ranking of three or higher from two of the music judges and one of the marching judges will also advance to state"

which was applied to Del Valle, who received rankings, I have been told, of 2,3, and 4 from three of the judges. The ranking of four was interpreted to count towards advancement since the area was certifying 4 bands from the field. After the review period, these results were announced. It was not until at least an hour later that the announcement of Del Valle's advancement was determined to be in error, and the group informed that they were NOT advancing.

The reaction of YISD music administrators was swift. They will be appealing this based on the review period. This time interval is to make sure the results are valid; once the time period is up the right to protest is over. As the mistake was made by a contest administrator, and the error was not discovered in the prescribed time, it should, in my opinion and lots of others, still be official. YISD officials will appeal to let the official announcement stand and have the band compete in San Antonio.

Well, the advancing bands have been chosen, so congratulations to Del Valle, Mountain View, and Riverside. The will travel to Odessa next week and attempt to advance to the State Marching Band Contest, but before they even leave, the chips are stacked against them.

In 2003 we finally cracked the State barrier when Del Valle advanced to the SMBC for the first time. The following advancing year in 2005 they were joined by Andress as well, with Riverside next in the order. It seemed El Paso had learned what it needed to be able to send groups to this great contest.

But then things changed. The powerful music groups in the Dallas metroplex put pressure on the Texas Music Educators' Association and UIL to redraw the state so more groups from their area would be eligible for a variety of State-level honors. The reasoning was that the SMBC, sponsored by UIL, and the All-State groups, hosted by TMEA, were best served by seeding the state for the best possible talent without regard to geographic representation. The region around DFW undoubtedly is very competitive musically; there are at least 10 colleges or universities offering a steady supply of music majors willing to volunteer or work as techs, the schools have unbelievable budgets for their arts programs ( where do you think all the "Robin Hood" money was coming from?), the area IS a hot bed of musical competitiveness. The fact that the schools in the DFW area have vastly superior staffing, money, and resources,– things that can literally make or break a program– was deemed to be inconsequential when the argument was made that it was very unfair to students in poorer areas to carve up the state where they cannot compete against the RESOURCES available to DFW students. So basically a circle was drawn around the metroplex, bisected into pie slices, and a slice of Dallas -Fort Worth is sent out to the far corners of the state twice a year to compete for all state-wide honors, ONLY in the Arts. The athletic districts were left alone to continue to send geographic representation to the state level of competition. ONLY the Arts were convoluted to help out the Dallas area.

The result has been that about 50% of the bands at the SMBC are now from the metroplex, and some years it's approached 60%. Those are some pretty good odds for the DFW schools. In the meantime, students in other bands around the edges of the state who have worked just as hard and had to overcome factors like no money, no help, and poor instruments and facilities are denied a chance to do something their athlete-counterparts are not– advance to State! In the individual All-State process, the result has been the same. We are sending about 50% fewer students to All-State groups now, because many of the "Pie-Slice" schools have instrumental specialists working in their schools from the beginning level through high school, giving the DFW students private or group lessons during the school day.

That's the beef with me. Give any of our programs the same staffing numbers, facilities, budget as the DFW schools, and buddy, watch what would happen. We accomplish much with comparatively little; if the playing field were truly level it would be grand, let me tell you.

El Paso schools have copied what we can from the system in place in many of the metroplex schools, and we are becoming more competitive, but it's not enough. TMEA and UIL need to restore the old Region/Area alignment and quit pandering to the Dallas-Fort Worth cartel. Geographical representation has been the system UIL was based on; it is harmful to our students and our programs to manipulate it in any other fashion.

OK, SISD was bigger, but the contest on this Saturday is the Be All, End All, for Texas Bands! Yes, it is the UIL Regional Band Contest! EVERYTHING is on the line for the 4-A Bands, and the 5-A's have this one last chance to get it out there before they start adding in the extra stuff for BOA! And any band wanting a UIL Sweepstakes Award has to march off with a Division One this Saturday. It should be pretty intense, ESPECIALLY for the 4-A Bands! They MUST get a 'One' to advance to area and face off with those Pie-slice bands from Dallas-Ft. Worth. I'm predicting Del Valle, Mountain View, and Riverside as sure things, and Parkland, Andress, El Paso, Jefferson, and Horizon as strong possibilities. Each of these last five bands had issues that needed work, but could be overcome. There are four more — Bowie, Chapin, Ysleta, and San Eli, who could do it, but probably need another two weeks or so to really be where they need to be, but you never know; I've seen amazing leaps in performance quality from my own bands the day of contest! Hopefully they all make it; it would be a boon for our area and send a strong message to the rest of the state.

What happens after that? A lot depends on how many bands advance to area for the different regional contests. This determines how many bands will advance to the Finals round at Area, and how many bands from the Finals advance to State. After Saturday, when we see the results from all the regions included in our area, we will know more. Right now, knowing nothing about bands from outside our region, I see Del Valle and Mountain View as strong contenders for a Finals appearance no matter the size of the field. If it's large, we stand a better chance of more El Paso bands going to the final competition, thus vying for State. We'll see! Should be exciting!

Also coming up this weekend is the kick-off concert to the 2009-2010 Season for the Mesilla Valley Concert Band up in Las Cruces. This marvelous band is under the direction of Dr. William Clarke and plays some great band literature. The concert starts at 3:00 p.m. in the Atkinson Recital Hall at NMSU. Drive up early, have a nice lunch somewhere in Mesilla, and go hear some music!

Next weekend some big things going on, all on October 24 – First and foremost, the Area Marching Contest in Odessa at Ratliffe Stadium! More information will follow after the regional on Saturday! And Franklin High School goes to San Antonio to compete against Texas' BEST BOA Bands in the Alamodome at the BOA Super Regional! Good Luck, Cougars! Also on the 24th is the 2nd Annual Sun City Percussion Throwdown, sponsored by Eastwood High School and the YISD. It's being held this year at the brand new Eastwood Middle School. I'll try to get a schedule and post it here, so check back later in the week!